Neue Rheinische Zeitung.  
No. 109, 22 September 1848

Fædrelandet on the Armistice

* Cologne, September 21. The so-called National Assembly in Frankfurt, as is known, accepted the armistice on the strength of Prussia’s assurance that the Danish government had officially communicated that it was prepared to agree to modifications.

It is, however, known what intrigues took place during the vote on the preliminary question. The intrigues over the main question took place outside the Assembly.

Let the reader hear what *Fædrelandet* of 16 September says:

After setting forth the disadvantages of the actually concluded armistice as against the first draft, it comes to the advantages for Denmark. England and Russia would intervene if war broke out again; German unity, held together by the Danish war with difficulty, would fall apart at once; the Jutland population can be drilled as a Landwehr, the army can be doubled: “and 60,000 men on the narrow peninsula, supported by the fleet, constitute a Dannevirke which the great united Germany will think twice before storming.

But the armistice may be what it will, it is certain that, once it has been concluded, ratified and guaranteed, it would be irresponsible if we ourselves failed to fulfil its conditions or tolerated their being violated by our enemies. Our government will do nothing of the sort, one can and must rely on that, and one must therefore not allow oneself to be disturbed by all the rumours about changes in the conditions once accepted that the Schleswig-Holstein organs are hawking about. We know perfectly well that Prussian generals and officials, and the Germans in general, with individual honourable exceptions, are not so particular about obligations and vows, about fidelity and faith; we are quite ready to believe that it is true that General Wrangel has had the impudence to make proposals to the Danish commissioner Mr Reedtz for breaking the conditions, in order to make them more acceptable to his Schleswig-Holstein friends; we are quite ready to believe that both the Frankfurt Assembly and the Prussian ministry regard it as perfectly in order to impose upon us arbitrary changes in what has once been accepted and sealed under all valid forms. But we also believe that the most damaging thing our government could do would be to allow the alteration of even a single jot in the treaty, for then ‘German honesty’ would not hesitate to trample it underfoot in one and all. If Carl Moltke can find no co-regents, it is after all laid down how they are to be appointed, the Danish government can indeed choose two whose consent is assured in advance, and it then remains Prussia’s business how it wants to find its two. If the Schleswig-Holsteiners do not want to obey, it is Prussia’s business to force them. And if at the last fixed date, i.e. tomorrow, September 17, something essential is lacking in the execution of the treaty, after all obligations have been conscientiously fulfilled on our side, it is the business of the Danish government to set a final deadline, and should this also elapse in vain, it is its right and its duty to have the Danish army march into Schleswig and occupy it. We shall then see what Europe will say, and what guarantees and obligations are worth. We certainly need not fear the consequences; in all cases we can bear them more easily than degrade ourselves in our own eyes and in the eyes of the whole world, than let ourselves be treated like the slavish thrall (Trael) of German arrogance and German dishonesty.

We are glad to be able to give at the moment we lay down the pen the positive assurance: that any modification in the armistice convention once concluded is impossible on the part of the Danish government.”

So far the semi-official organ of the Danish Cabinet.

And now? Who is now the deceiver, who the deceived, who the deceived deceiver?